Nothing in life is perfect, but sometimes we dream about the perfect evening, the perfect meal, the perfect life, the perfect event. We place our expectations so high or try to make it work- we want everything to go as we have dreamed, but life rarely is like that. This year has been a rough year for me in my teaching career- 4th year… should be easier they all said. Well it has been easier in some regards, but it has also been one of those years that I have had to work through new changes, routines, and schedules. I use my planner from @erincondren to keep me scheduled throughout the week… love my planner!!!
The last couple weeks I have been working on a fun night for the incoming orchestra students. I put together a google form, parent letters, visited elementary schools during my lunch time, and set up times to visit the 5th grade orchestra classes during my school days and I had a vision of a “perfect night”. My perfect night would be my strolling strings students performing and a ton of 5th graders listening and being so excited. Then playing staff twister with the students and them having a complete blast and wanting to continue playing the whole night. I also pictured there being 60 some students eager and excited about orchestra and getting involved.
My expectations were not met. And in return I was disappointed and devastated. I felt like I had worked so hard getting everything set up and it didn’t feel like it did anything. I had a smaller number of 5th graders than what I was expecting and it made the evening seem pretty lame. Why is it that we as a society put so much weight on quantity vs. quality? What if the students who showed up were the best students and the most amazing orchestra students ever…? Why does it matter that my vision was less than expected?
These are all questions that I have . I wanted to be positive and think the following thoughts as I waited for more students to show up, “It’s alright… it was the weather, it was because it was a Friday and lots of people were still working…” maybe all of these are true, but then I allowed myself to think the most negative things about myself and my job. I don’t know why I get so negative and allow myself to think such horrible things about myself and my teaching abilities, but it somehow is the first thing that happens when things don’t turn out to be my “perfect vision.”
Things are not going to be perfect, so what will you do when your perfect vision doesn’t happen… I am going to work on this. It may not happen right away, but I have to allow myself to change my mindset and see the positives. The crazy thing is that I can seriously do that for everyone else in my life, but when it comes to things that I do, I am my own worst critic. While this can help me sometimes and push me to be better, it is many times detrimental and makes me dwell on the negative. I don’t want this to be my life… I want to be able to change my mindset and re-focus on other things- to see the awesome parts of my job and the events, even when things don’t go as planned.
What I can say went well… My strolling strings played well and had fun, I think the 5th graders that came had a good time, and everyone got enough Pizza!!!
What do you do when life gets you down? What do you do when your perfect vision does not match up to reality? How do we tone down our visions, but continue to push towards being better?
Got any ideas? I would love to hear from you. Kind of a deep subject, but this is reality and I wanted to be real with how I feel.
Going to bed and up early again tomorrow morning to take the 8th grade orchestra to Silver Dollar City… hears to a rainy Saturday at an outside amusement park (Sarcasm). I will make it the best day I can… I am going to wear my rain coat, and my rain boots and play in the rain.
